a first

Last night we had our first river swim of the season. Well, it wasn't so much a swim as a dip with a bit of cleaning (we all brought down soap and wash clothes.) The water was cold, cold, but welcome after a long day of sun and dirt.

All the onions are in the ground...we planted two beds of spring onions (the wee green ones, scallions if you will) and eleven beds of storage onions and leeks. The beds are about 230 feet long with two or three rows in each bed. Its amazing to think all the onions for the season are all planted.

A lot of the food for the season is already growing, either in the ground or the greenhouse, now its just a matter of taking care of the soil and waiting. In her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kinsolver imagines a season of vegetables as one large plant, the vegetannual. Once she pictured a growing season as one growing entity, it was easier for her to understand why we don't have tomatoes in April. When a plant first begins to grow, it is all greens, hence, collards, kale, lettuce, cabbage and chard in the spring. Next grow the young fruits (summer sqush, beans, peas), followed by more mature fruits (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers) which is the height of summer. After the soft flesh fruits, things harden and in the fall we harvest pumpkins, butternut squash and gords. After a full fruit, the plant can put the rest of its energy back into the roots...and that gets you all the beets, carrots, potatoes and onions. I liked her image and I think its a good tool for people to use when they begin to learn what it means to eat seasonally.

We are still busy getting all the fields ready for planting, and today I took a break from tractor work. Not willingly, mind you, but I had a system full of benedryl, trying to cope with the black fly bites that I have acquired. I've always reacted badly to any insect bites, but there is something about my west coast blood that cannot handle the black flies. My left ear is swolllen to about twice the size of my right. Not very cute.